Rihanna: “Assault liberated me”

Rihanna has revealed that the assault she suffered at the hands of ex-boyfriend Chris Brown last year gave her songwriting an edge.

"It actually gave me a lot of liberation,” she tells the new issue of ‘Vogue.’ "What I mean is, I was able to tap into the personal part of my music. I started to tell stories through my music that were actually my stories.”

The ‘S&M’ singer added, “My album before that, there was still a little bit of protection, there was still an innocence to me. And what that time in my life did was kind of wake people up – it's not all a bed of roses. My life is like yours.”